Here's the skinny on the MeK organization Scott mentions in his talk:
The IPC made the news in February when it released a report titled "US Options for Iran." In that report, the IPC recommended that a terrorist group known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) be removed from the US government's hit list. The authors of the IPC report equate the terrorist MEK with the African National Congress that fought long and hard against the despicable all-white South African regime and its US supporters so many years ago. Of course, the implication here is that the MEK will somehow produce a Nelson Mandela, or at least is on the same playing field as Mandela's group was.
Those two wacky thoughts should be enough to dismiss the 11 IPC principals, their mission and their clumsy report as nonsense. But inside the Washington Beltway, it's never wise to dismiss ignorance until performing background checks on the individuals and their affiliations. The record shows that the IPC operates in very close proximity to the US intelligence community, has the support of 150 members in the US Congress, and is linked to individuals/groups who successfully lied and led the US into another Vietnam-like war, and whose primary purpose is the creation of a US empire that controls the world's resources and protects a greater Israel. Crazy is selling these days and the loonies are in charge.
The IPC is supported by the neocon all-stars that we've come to know and love such as Douglas Feith, Frank Gaffney, Michael Leeden, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, et al. But these frontbenchers are running out of political muscle as their war in Iraq continues to drain the resources of the American people on political, economic and military fronts. What's worse, perhaps, is their "with us or against us" mentality has caused new political and economic alliances to form (example: South America-China-Iran) and has accelerated both conventional and nuclear arms races. Having failed on so many fronts, they recognize that to get the US into Iran, some new faces are needed and that's where the IPC backbenchers are critical to the forthcoming anti-Iranian/Persian propaganda operations.
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http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/052105Stanton/052105stanton.html
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Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) is the largest and most militant group opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Also known as the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, MEK is led by husband and wife Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. MEK was added to the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist groups in 1997.
MEK was founded in the 1960s by a group of college-educated Iranian leftists opposed to the country’s pro-Western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Although the group took part in the 1979 Islamic revolution that replaced the shah with a Shiite Islamist regime, MEK’s ideology, a blend of Marxism and Islamism, put it at odds with the postrevolutionary government. In 1981, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Khomeini’s Iran. In 1986, MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq where it received its primary support to attack the regime in Iran. During the 2003 Iraq war, U.S. forces cracked down on MEK’s bases in Iraq, and in June 2003 French authorities raided an MEK compound outside Paris and arrested 160 people, including Maryam Rajavi.
Activities
The group has targeted Iranian government officials and government facilities in Iran and abroad; during the 1970s, it attacked Americans in Iran. While the group says it does not intentionally target civilians, it has often risked civilian casualties. It routinely aims its attacks at government buildings in crowded cities. MEK terrorism has declined since late 2001. Incidents linked to the group include:
The series of mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids during 2000 and 2001 against Iranian government buildings; one of these killed Iran’s chief of staff
The 2000 mortar attack on President Mohammad Khatami’s palace in Tehran
The February 2000 “Operation Great Bahman,” during which MEK launched 12 attacks against Iran
The 1999 assassination of the deputy chief of Iran’s armed forces general staff, Ali Sayyad Shirazi
The 1998 assassination of the director of Iran’s prison system, Asadollah Lajevardi
The 1992 near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and institutions in 13 countries Assistance to Saddam Hussein’s suppression of the 1991 Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish uprisings
The 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party and of Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei and Bahonar Support for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries
The 1970s killings of U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran
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http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/mek.htmThe new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad belonged to a different student organization,
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With the start of the revolution in 1979, Ahmadinejad became the representative of the university's students in the Office for Strengthening of Unity Between Universities and Theological Seminaries, later to become known as the OSU.
The OSU was set up by Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, who was at the time Khomeini's top confidant. Beheshti wanted the OSU to organize Islamist students into a force able to counter the rising influence of the opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq among university students.
MeK, at the outset was a group of Marxist students opposed to the shah. Despite their philosophical differences, the MeK initially sided with Khomeini against the monarchy, believing that once the shah was gone they, would be in a better position to participate in the country's politics. Khomeini however, turned on the MeK after taking power, arresting and executing their members, thus forcing them underground or to flee Iran. Many took refuge in neighboring Iraq where they sided with Saddam Hussein against Iran in the eight-year Iraq-Iran war. The group is on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations.
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http://www.wpherald.com/print.php?StoryID=20050627-013737-1779r
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